The Clippers, after getting out to an early lead, collapsed, and were blown out in the second half by the Grizzlies, losing 108-94 in a game that wasn’t nearly that close.
Summary
The Clippers dominated the first quarter, getting out to a quick 9-2 start and forcing a Grizzlies timeout within the first two minutes. And the Clippers didn’t let up from there, swarming the Grizzlies on defense and forcing turnovers while attacking the basket to draw fouls and kick for threes. The result was a double-digit lead that continued to grow as the quarter went along and the Grizzlies got more frustrated. Terance and Norm were the first two off the bench, for Russ and Nico, followed a couple minutes later by Bones and Plumlee for Gordon and Zu. Finally came RoCo for Kawhi, completing a full five-man bench unit and 10-man rotation. The bench didn’t look quite as good, with the offense in particular having some bad shots and overpassing, and the defense suffering without Zu. The result was a 20 point lead was trimmed to 13 after one.
Things continued to slip in the second. Bones got an early dunk, but two RoCo turnovers saw him quickly yanked for Russ and a four-guard unit. At tha point, the wheels really came off, with Clippers’ bad shots and turnovers leading directly to Grizzlies points in transition, with the particular killer being Luke Kennard threes. Gordon came back for Mann at the 9:09 mark, but the unit was still too small, and a minute later Ty Lue called timeout with the lead gone. The Clippers’ starters came back, and while the true downslide stopped, the momentum was all gone. The Clippers’ offense remained stuck in the mud, and while the Grizzlies’ starters continued to play badly themselves upon their return late in the quarter, the damage had been done, with the Grizzlies holding a 55-51 lead.
Eric Gordon was ruled out of the game during halftime with hip soreness, and then right before the 3rd quarter starter Kawhi was ruled out so that he could play tomorrow against the Pelicans. The Clippers were sloppy from the geto-go, and quickly fell down nine, but a Zu and Mann led spurt got the Grizzlies lead back to 2 and forced a timeout. From that point, things steadily went downhill. The Clippers could not get much going on offense and the Grizzlies ran it down their throat on the other end. The bench trickled in down 10 with around 5 minutes left, but that didn’t change anything. Norm finally got some offense going late, but the defense and rebounding remained poor, and the Clippers trailed by 14 going into the final frame.
Amir Coffey started the fourth for Terance Mann, and with how little Amir has played in recent months, that more or less signaled Ty Lue waving the white flag. The Clippers quickly fell down 97-75, and true garbage time commenced, with Moon and Moussa replacing Norm and Mason respectively. The deep bench plus Bones and RoCo made the Grizzlies fight for it, even trimming the deficit to 11 at one point, but they never really had a chance, and the Grizzlies secured the fairly easy 108-94 victory.
Notes
Kawhi Bizarreness: I really can’t overstate how weird it is that Kawhi Leonard played the first half and then didn’t play the second so he could play tomorrow. Having watched thousands of NBA games, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that happen, at least in a game that wasn’t a complete blow-out (resting vets when down like 30 at halftime is something the Clips have done). To be honest, I really don’t get it. If the Clippers knew they’d have Kawi for less than 20 minutes tonight, I either would have brought him off the bench to balance the rotation a bit more, played him 10 minutes in each half to smooth it out, or, most probably, just not played him at all. I’m not sure if Kawhi really wanted to play this one and get in at least one back-to-back this year, or if this is just another Clipper experiment, but I didn’t like it. I can’t imagine a more easy way to disrupt the flow of your players than playing your superstar in one half and then not in the other by choice. Also, nobody seemed to know about this before the game – did the players even know? Very, very strange stuff.
Editor’s Note: Right at publishing time, Andrew Greif got word from Norm Powell and Russell Westbrook that they did *not* know about Kawhi resting the second half, which makes this whole scenario much weirder.
10 Man Rotation…For Now: Ty Lue has rarely gone to a 10-man rotation this year, but he did tonight, playing all of Bones Hyland, Norm Powell, Terance Mann, Robert Covington, and Mason Plumlee off the bench. They played together at the end of the 1st and start of the 2nd quarters when the game started slipping for the Clippers, but were technically only a -3 in 3:13. The unit did play again in the 3rd, and was again bad but not awful. It’s unclear if Ty went with this and will stick with the 10 man grouping until PG comes back, if it’s just because it was a back-to-back, or if it’s a brief test to see who will be left out when the rotation shrinks to nine again.
Speaking of, The 4 Guard Lineups Returned: Robert Covington seems like the “10th” man as of right now, as he was pulled quickest in the 2nd quarter. However, the super small unit with Russ replacing him is the one that truly gave the game away. Even with Russ offering more size than Reggie, Wall, or Luke did, those four-guard units are just too small on defense, and Plumlee is not nearly good enough defensively to clean up. I’d probably keep RoCo in the rotation over Bones, but we will see.
